Our new Markdown renderer replaces Multi­Markdown 6 and delivers more reliable previews and broader syntax support. It combines the most popular features of Multi­Markdown, Common­Mark, GitHub Flavored Markdown, and more.

Version 4.1 also supports BibTeX documents, merges multiple images, including TIFFs, into a single PDF document, and let’s you open text documents and PDFs directly in editing mode, saving you an extra tap every time you want to make changes. We’ve revisited the group selector, too, which now sports a search field and keyboard navigation. If you’re relying on the geolocation saved with each document you can now open a geolocation in Apple and Google Maps or edit it if it’s incorrect.

Of course, we’ve also improved the overall reliability and performance, and fixed bugs and glitches.

You can find a complete list of all improvements in Settings > Help > Read Me inside the app. The New & Improved page also highlights what’s new in each feature release. We recommend this update to all users of DEVONthink To Go. The App Store will either install the update automatically for you or you can find it in the Updates area of the App Store app. If you are still using an older generation of DEVONthink To Go, version 4 is a new app and you’ll need to install it manually. DEVONthink To Go 4 is included with every license for DEVONthink 4 Pro or Server for Mac as long as it receives updates.

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If you’ve ever needed to consolidate content from multiple documents into one, you likely have used copy and paste. But if you make edits, they have to be made to all involved documents. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could keep the documents separated but show them as a single document? You can with a Markdown feature in DEVONthink: file transclusion.

File transclusion displays the content of other documents as if they’re part of the Markdown document you’re working on. Typically used for other Markdown documents, it also supports plain text, rich text, PDF documents, and sheets. You can trans­clude images, though we recommend using the regular Markdown syntax instead. It is even possible to trans­clude audio and video documents. The document you want to trans­clude just needs to be in the same database as the Markdown document.

To add a transclusion, use one of these methods:

• Start typing double curly braces {{ and the name of the document you want to trans­clude. An autocompletion popup appears, so you can select a document in the same database. Select one and press Return to insert the name and close the braces.
• Type the name and extension and braces manually. This also works in DEVONthink To Go.
• Hold the Control key while dragging and dropping into the source to insert a transclusion.

The contents of the trans­cluded documents immediately appear in the preview. Change the order in the source and it changes the preview.

But note, the trans­cluded content is only a visual representation. You cannot select and edit it. To make changes to it, you need to open the document. These changes will be will be immediately reflected in the preview. Also be aware file transclusion isn’t supported in all third-party Markdown applications.

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It’s not uncommon for us to get a question about finding documents with or without tags in their DEVONthink or DEVONthink To Go databases. People often approach the problem with a Tags property, but that isn’t optimal. Here’s how to correctly search for them.

If you click into the toolbar search in DEVONthink and press ⏎, the advanced search options appear. In the first popup in the second line of the search, select Item. In the field next to it (the operator popup), select is or isn’t. And in the third popup, select Tagged. You have just constructed a proper search for tagged or untagged items. Also, you can see the raw query in the toolbar search: item:tagged or item:!tagged, which you can always type in manually.

You can also select other options like duplicated, replicated, etc. In DEVONthink for Mac, the operator popup also includes contains and does not contain with some other attributes, e.g., Aliases, URL, Thumbnail, etc. DEVONthink To Go doesn’t support the contains / does not contain operators at this time, but it is on our list of improvements.

To do the same kind of search in DEVONthink To Go, tap the search icon and enter the search terms manually or tap the Action button (⋯) and choose Advanced Search to use the predicate editor.

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Joe Kissell from Take Control Books has updated his ebook Take Control of DEVONthink 4. It is now up to date with DEVONthink 4.2.2 Cassini and DEVONthink To Go 4.0.6 Kepler. Joe explains, for example, how to export reminders from DEVONthink to Apple Reminders or how to use the new AI search settings. He also updated many screenshots to match DEVONthink’s new Liquid Glass interface for macOS Tahoe.

Download Take Control of DEVONthink 4 for free from our Handbooks and Extras page or directly from Take Control Books.

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In DEVONthink, you can encrypt databases for particularly private or sensitive documents. When you open your encrypted database, you will be prompted to enter your encryption key. This macOS dialog has a small checkbox, which may be enabled by default: Remember password in keychain. So the next time you want to open the database, DEVONthink will automatically use the stored key from your keychain and won’t ask you to enter it. While this may be convenient, you may not want it for privacy reasons. Do this to remove your key from the keychain:

1. Close the database.
2. In the Finder, do a Spotlight search for Keychain and open the Keychain Access application. Do not open the Passwords application when prompted. You want to use Keychain Access. On modern versions of macOS, you will likely need to enter your administrative password as well.
3. Select the login section on the left.
4. Click the search field in the upper right and search for spars. This will show you stored encryption keys for disk images.
5. If you find the key for your database, select it, choose Edit > Delete, and confirm.
6. Quit Keychain Access.
7. Reopen your encrypted database and you should again be prompted for the encryption key to open it. Make sure you disable Remember password in keychain to avoid running into the same issue.

This also applies to DEVONthink’s revision-proof databases.

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Recently, we had a question about the Today global smart group in DEVONthink and why it’s not in DEVONthink To Go. To keep things simple and functional, we chose to include a smaller set of very commonly used smart groups by default. But that’s no problem at all, because you can easily create your own smart groups.

Smart groups show items that match criteria you specify, e.g., PDF documents added in the past week. They are essentially saved custom searches, so this is the standard way to create them:

1. Tap the search field or magnifying glass icon to start a search.
2. Type in your search terms, choose the scope of the search, e.g., All or Group, and inspect the results.
3. Tap the Action button (…) and choose Save.
   • If your scope was All, this will prompt you to save a global smart group. This appears on the databases screen.
   • If your scope was any other option, you will save a local smart group. This appears in the current database.

There is an alternative method for creating a local smart group: go into the desired database, tap the Add button (+), and choose Smart Group. Give it a name, add your criteria, and save it. And yes, local smart groups sync with DEVONthink on the Mac.

So, to create a Today global smart group, run a search with the criteria added:today kind:document, save it, and name it Today.

Note: On the databases screen on the iPhone, you can’t choose a scope. You’re not in a specific database, so you will automatically create a global smart group.

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AI inside DEVONthink can be a powerful tool. But when it comes to AI, some users have security concerns, such as possible prompt injections. So, what exactly are they, and are they a risk in DEVONthink?

A prompt injection happens when text hidden inside a document is crafted to circumvent AI with its own commands, like one that says, “Ignore the previous prompt and do this instead…” The danger isn’t limited to triggering unwanted commands — injections can also silently distort AI responses such as summaries or evaluations. In addition, injections can occur not only in your own documents but also in web search results and downloaded pages, which is why searches and downloads should be restricted and only enabled when needed.

This isn’t a DEVONthink problem specifically but an issue for any document processing AI system. This is why AI models are increasingly designed to be more resistant to these attacks, and the best precaution is to be mindful about what you add to your database. While in a well-curated personal database the practical risk is low, there are features in DEVONthink to limit or thwart these injections:

• AI responses are automatically stripped of unexpected or potentially dangerous HTML content (such as scripts or frames) that could result from prompt injections.
• Even if you allow downloads, the Chat assistant, Chat smart actions, and AppleScript commands automatically disable downloading web pages while processing a document. The Chat assistant also disables downloads after accessing the content, annotations, or comments of a document.

You can also limit what the AI is allowed to access, both inside and outside your databases. However, keep in mind that stricter limits may reduce the AI’s ability to assist you:

• Enabling Search > Sources: Web in the settings or Search: Web in the Chat’s Options is often unnecessary and increases exposure to prompt injections via search results or downloaded pages. Enable it only as needed.
• If you do enable web searching, consider also disabling the AI > Chat > Assistant: Allow download of web pages and Load remote images automatically options. Disabling remote images also prevents prompt injections from silently transferring data to remote servers.
• You could disable AI > Search: Database and also AI > Chat > Assistant: Allow property & content changes. You can temporarily enable database searching in the Chat assistant as needed.
• When using the Chat assistant or Chat-related smart actions, e.g., Chat - Query, set the Documents popup to Without Document, unless you are specifically dealing with documents.

We don’t intend to cause undue concern, but to help you make better-informed choices in how you use AI.

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It is not uncommon for us to get support inquiries saying they installed DEVONthink or DEVONthink To Go but it’s not syncing. DEVONthink does not automatically sync by default because we believe that you should decide for yourself whether and what you want to sync. Software shouldn’t make such decisions for you. Here are things to consider.

Before setting up the sync, think about…

• whether you want to sync, as sync is always optional.
• what database(s) to sync. Not every database needs to (or should) be synchronized.
• which devices to sync to, as not every database needs to be on every device. This is especially true on mobile.
• which sync method to use, noting each device must be using the same sync method/location to sync the same database.
• whether you want to use encryption when syncing. You must make this choice before you sync the first time. If you do use encryption, you must use the same encryption key on other devices syncing with the same sync method.

Sync is discussed in the built-in Help and user handbook for both applications. There is a Sync Explained section in the In & Out chapter for DEVONthink and the Sync chapter for DEVONthink To Go. Once you decide what sync method you’ll use, each method has its own section with a description, technical considerations, and simple step-by-step instructions for setting up a new or an existing sync location. If you only have one of our applications, just follow the steps to create a new location on one device, then follow the steps for an existing location on the other device(s). Setting up sync in DEVONthink and DEVONthink To Go is pretty similar but if you want to be sure you can check the corresponding chapters in both handbooks.

You can find many more blog posts on sync-related topics here on our blog. The free Take Control of DEVONthink also includes a dedicated chapter, Sync DEVONthink Databases, and there are several entries about synchronization in our FAQ.

If you do run into an issue, you can consult the Troubleshooting > Sync Issues section of the Help or start a support ticket, if you really get stuck.

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If you want to take notes about a document in your DEVONthink database, there is a feature that does exactly that: the annotation. This is a specialized note document linked to another document. It is most often used for taking long-form notes about PDFs, but can be used with any document in your database. We already introduced them in a blog post some time ago. However, here is a short recap of how to create them, as well as some additions to the previous post.

Select a document in your database. To create an annotation, select Data > Annotate & Remind and choose one of the default templates. Alternatively, open the Tools > Inspectors > Info: Annotations & Reminders inspector, click the Annotations button and choose from the New from Template menu. Or just start typing in the annotation field and the document is created for you.

Above the annotation field are buttons to open the annotation in its own window (the arrow), create a backlink to the document you’re writing about (the chain), or insert a quote from selected text (the quote). In the Annotations menu, you will find similar commands but also some new AI-related ones:

• Insert Summary via Chat: The selected chat model summarizes the current document or its selected text. Click insert to add in the summary into the annotation.
• Insert Transcription: Inserts recognized text from an image or speech from a media document, as explained in this blog post about AI speech transcription.

You can find more information on all annotation commands in the Inspectors > Info pane > Annotations & Reminders > Annotation Files section in the built-in Help or user handbook.

Lastly, you can configure some default settings for the annotations in Settings > Files > General:

• Choose whether to create annotation documents in the same group as your document or in a shared Annotations group at the root of this database.
• Choose whether annotations should “follow” the originating document if it is moved to another database.
• Choose whether the annotation document’s name should be updated if you rename the originating document. If the annotation has a backlink to the original document, you must also enable the WikiLinks > Update name of item links automatically setting to change the link’s text.
• The annotation document can be either Markdown or rich text. Choose one of these options or let DEVONthink decide based on the originating document’s type.

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We have blogged about all the sidebars in a DEVONthink window — the Navigate sidebar, the Reading List, and the Import sidebar of the Pro and Server edition — except one: the Extras sidebar. While it may seem like just a simple pane in the interface, we believe it’s a useful place to get some additional information from us.

This last of the sidebars appears as an ellipsis (•••). It functions as a newsroom and a library of DEVONthink-related information. If you see a notification about a new blog post, etc., it’s directing you to this sidebar. Connected to online resources, like our blog, it provides up-to-date information without you having to leave the application.

In the Support section, the Tips & Tricks subsection has a large number of current instructional blog posts, e.g., our tips, like this one, to read at your leisure. You can also click the article’s title to open it in your browser. The Scripts, Templates, and Smart Rules subsections mirror the installable extras from the Support Assistant window. Each item includes a brief description and a live hyperlink so you can install extras directly from this window.

Lastly, the DEVONtechnologies section lists our promotions or those we’ve participated in, as well as application updates we’ve announced.

So if you are curious what the latest information or tip is, switch to the Extras and see what’s new.

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Many people are interested in running local AI models but hardware limits what models you can run. Smaller models are less reliable, larger models are too much for most machines. But the popular AI application Ollama now offers access to some large models online, ones that can be used in DEVONthink or DEVONthink To Go.

Ollama often is an entry point for people new to local AI. Recently, they started offering cloud models, providing access to many models including large LLMs like Mistral-large-4:675b (675 billion parameters!). In our testing, some of these models are very performant, keeping pace with commercial ones. To set up Ollama and these models in the higher editions of DEVONthink, do the following:

1. Create an account on Ollama.com.
2. Click on Keys then Add API Key. Enter a name to distinguish the key, e.g., Ollama Remote then press Generate API Key. Copy this key and store it somewhere safe as you will not be able to copy it again.
3. If you haven’t downloaded the Ollama application, do so now and launch it.
4. Control-click Ollama’s menubar icon, open the Settings, and sign into your Ollama account. This will register the device so you know what devices can access your Ollama cloud models. While not required, you can also copy and store the public key as a reference.
5. Go into DEVONthink’s Settings > AI and choose Ollama (Remote) in the Provider popup.
6. Copy and paste your API key into the API Key field.
7. In the API URL field, enter: https://ollama.com/api/chat. You should immediately see the Model popup display a model. Click on it to choose the online model you want to use.

To use this in DEVONthink To Go, follow steps 5-7 in the app’s Settings > AI.

If you’re interested, Ollama also offers paid services to access more models, etc. Bear in mind, AI models vary in capabilities, so one may be able to “read a document” and generate a Markdown document with a response, but not all of them can. We don’t control what they can and can’t do. You’ll need to test and become familiar with the model(s) you want to use.

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DEVONthink user Stephen Millard has created an automation for importing documents. On his blog ThoughtAsylum, he explains how he uses AppleScript folder actions and the app Dropzone to import and file documents in certain databases and groups in DEVONthink.

His post is a good example of an automation that Stephen created through tinkering and trial and error. It is interesting to see how he describes his work process, where he tried different approaches and finally found a good solution. Stephen shares the script in his post so you can use it or study it in detail if you’re interested in scripting. Check out Stephen’s blogpost here.

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This month four years ago the Russian Federation started the invasion of Ukraine and brought war back to Europe. Since then, soldiers and civilians alike have died day after day. Now, the cold winter and the targeted destruction of civil energy infrastructure is making life in Ukraine almost unbearable. Pipes burst from frozen water, people who are unable to leave, die in their icy homes.

We are just a small team of developers working from the US, the EU, and the UK, and as a company we don’t take a political stance. But, we cannot ignore a humanitarian catastrophe happening in our neighborhood.

We have today donated 20 % of our projected February revenue to two humanitarian organizations sending teams to Ukraine repairing damaged homes and infrastructure, and providing covers, food, and generators.

We often talk about document links, e.g., in the Documents > Document Linking section of DEVONthink's Help. The See Also inspector exposes potentially related documents but there are other relationships between items not as easily seen. In version 4, these connections are visualized via its Graph view.

The Graph view is available in the Pro and Server editions of DEVONthink and driven by its internal AI and other metadata. Depending on the properties of the selected document, the connections the graph visualizes could include: tags, See Also suggestions, mentions, item links, or WikiLinks. For example, if you have a document containing WikiLinks to other documents, you can see and show or hide those connections.

You can access the Graph View via Tools > Inspectors > AI: Graph or via the detachable Tools > Graph popover. This is a context-aware feature so as you change documents, it updates the connections and options. Double-click nodes to view the connected item. In the inspector, this also changes the central node of the graph. Zoom in or out with ⌘+ or ⌘-. You can even use the arrow keys and the Return key to navigate the nodes and switch to selected items in the graph. You’ll find other commands in the context menu when you Control-click a node.

Be aware, the graph is necessarily limited in it’s scope. It is not intended to display branches beyond the immediate connections to the central node. Also, the display is static at this time so you can’t drag the nodes to different positions.

PS: This is a built-in feature, separate from the scripted version in version 3 we blogged about some years ago.

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The little utility Capture from Sir Studio lets you quick make notes when thoughts cross your mind. Quickly write them down and organize them later. Now the developer has also added an export option for DEVONthink.

In the settings of Capture, you can choose DEVONthink as an app and set up tags and a default destination, if desired. To do so, select the desired group in DEVONthink, then choose Edit > Copy Item Link from the menu. In DEVONthink To Go, long tap on a group and select Copy > Copy Item Link. Paste the reference into Capture, then remove the front part of the reference x-devonthink-item:// so that only the destination’s identifier remains. Now select a note, click the Share icon and then choose DEVONthink. The note will be imported as plain text.

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DEVONthink 4 supports automatic versioning, quietly saving snapshots of your documents as you work. But sometimes you want more control over which versions are preserved. That’s where named versions come in.

New in DEVONthink 4.2 Cassini, you can now manually save the current state of a document as a version and give it a distinct name. Unlike automatic versions that may be purged over time, named versions are permanent. They stick around until you explicitly remove them.

Think of named versions as bookmarks in your document’s evolution. Here are some practical scenarios:

• Document stages: Mark versions like “First Draft,” “After Editor Review,” or “Final for Client”
• Safe experimentation: Save a known good version before trying major revisions
• Milestone tracking: Preserve states like before presentation or before restructuring
• Collaborative checkpoints: Create a fallback before incorporating feedback

To save a named version, open the Versions inspector for the document with Tools > Inspectors > Versions or ⌃V, then click the + button. You’ll be prompted to give it a meaningful name that helps you identify it later. Click OK. You can access all saved versions, manual or automatic, in the Versions inspector.

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The chat assistant gains powerful new capabilities: adjust many options directly within the chat window, and access up to 50 saved conversations to pick up right where you left off. You can now choose between DEVONthink, Perplexity, or Exa for web and Wikipedia searches, giving you control over speed versus freshness. Updated AI models including Claude 4.5, GPT 5.2, Gemini 3, and Google Nano Banana Pro, deliver improved performance across all AI use. When generating images, you can choose the aspect ratio.

New workflow tools help you work faster: the detachable Graph popover lets you visualize document connections, you can manually save named versions for finer revision control, and annotation documents are now easier to create, locate, and open directly from menus and inspectors. Markdown documents also support smart quotes and dashes for polished typography.

For users of the legacy generation of DEVONthink, we’ve released version 3.9.17 with quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.

You can find a complete list of all improvements by choosing Help > Release Notes inside the application. We recommend this update to all users of DEVONthink for Mac. Get it by using the application’s update function or from our Download page. The New & Improved page also highlights what’s new in each feature release.

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We all have many bookmarks pointing us to our favorite sites. But navigating them to open a specific site just to search for something can be cumbersome. However, a simple search mechanism, called a bang, can speed up your Internet searches dramatically and they’re supported in DEVONagent Pro.

Commonly known from the DuckDuckGo search engine, a bang is a predefined shortcut or keyword, always preceded by an exclamation point, and pointing to a specific site. However, you can also use Bangs for example in Kagi or DEVONagent. If you type !w pickleball in a DEVONagent browser, it will switch to Wikipedia and initiate the search. Or try !amz usb-c cable to start shopping more quickly. The idea caught on and there are literally thousands of bangs in the wild today. You can check out more of them on the DuckDuckGo Bangs page.

Similar to bangs, you can create your own shortcuts for some of the plugins in DEVONagent Pro:

1. Open the Window > Plugins & Scanners pane.
2. Select the desired option. We’ll choose References > Philosophy.
3. Enter your abbreviation in the Keywords section. You can even define several, separated by commas. We’ll enter phil (without the exclamation point) and close this panel.
4. Choose File > New Browser or press ⌘N to open a DEVONagent browser.
5. In the address bar, type phil kant and press Return.

And if you create your own search plugins, you can set a keyword to make your own “bang”!

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Joe Kissell from Take Control Books has updated the ebook Take Control of DEVONthink 4. It now covers the new features of DEVONthink 4.1.1 Europa and includes a revised chapter on DEVONthink To Go 4 Kepler. Joe gives an overview of DEVONthink To Go 4 and explains several new features such as the integration of generative AI, versioning, or custom metadata. He also guides through the user interface and explains the license model.

Download Take Control of DEVONthink 4 for free from our Handbooks and Extras page or directly from Take Control Books.

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Whether you made errors while writing, have text you need to update, or want to do some text cleanup, DEVONthink can help modify text in a document.

If you need to replace words in the text of a document, start off with a search. Select the document and press ⌘F to open the Search inspector. Type in the word you need to replace and press Return. If you don’t find matches, adjust the search term. For multi-word searches, surround them with double quotes. Once you’re finding matches, enter your replacement text in the Replace field. Then, you have three options for the replacement:

• Replace: Select the first occurrence in the inspector or press the > button. Press Replace to change the text. If not, press the forward arrow again or press ⌘G (the shortcut for Edit > Find > Find Next) and press Replace when needed.
• All: Literally replaces all the matched strings with the replacement text. Be careful with this, especially in longer documents.
• In Selection: This also replaces all matches but more safely in selected text. This helps avoid accidental replacements.

As an example, if I had a document with Devonthink in it, I could enter the replacement text DEVONthink, press the All button and fix them all at once. If I needed to be more careful, I could use one of the other options.

Here’s a power-tip: If you enable Ignore Case, you will get more matches. While you need to pay a bit more attention, it can be useful e.g., it would also match and replace DevonTHINK as well.

Note: This only works in text documents, you can edit in DEVONthink.

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